simply oroque's view

as you probably noticed, writing a blog when you've got a full time job is quite like losing weight. you are revved up at the beginning and actually maybe lose a few pounds but then after two weeks, you realize you don't exactly look like kate moss or tyson beckford and you decide that a tiny bit of that chocolate cake won't completely ruin anything???? and then four months later, you add twice the weight you lost. how do i know that right, well lets just say there's a reason i only take headshots. lol. a few days back, the Federal Government finally admitted something we all knew long ago...that they would not be meeting their much publicized 6,000 MW of electricity generation for the end of December 2009. For some reason, of all the ministers in every cabinet, the minister responsible for power and electrcity always seems to have need to brag about his abilities to find the solution to the lasting power problem and i don't think the new minister learnt anything fr...

i'm gonna make this pretty quick because there's really nothing worth troubling one's mind overly today. for those of you who don't live in nigeria, or who live under a rock in nigeria, here's whats been happening pretty quick: 1. the president went to saudi arabia to see his doctors. news reports have it that this would be his 4th trip in three months on health grounds and if you have seen his pictures in recent times, you will agree that he doesn't look like the bastion of health. 2. tanker drivers in abuja have gone on strike because their working conditions are not convenient. 3. every tom dick and harry is running a christmas promotion and noone seems to be going shopping or buying anything of any significant worth this christmas. 4. banks have steathily relieved themselves of their staff over the past few months, and contrary to what you may be reading (or in this case, not reading) in the news, the unemployment rates have indeed skyrocketed. of all the i...

on my way to work this morning, i was handed a publication that consisted mostly of adverts. if you live in lagos nigeria, you get handed all sorts of publications on your way to work, some given politely, other just thrust into your car like you really have no choice than to receive it and read it. its usually the religious kind that have the effrontery to do the latter. so anyways, it ended up being interesting read, that is until i got to the advert that said "take back control of your home". naturally, i was intrigued. my mind went to all the instances when a man could lose the respect of his family, or lose his house to government etcetera. i shouldnt have tasked my early mind that far. it read: "take back control of your home. try our products and reverse the signs of 'weak erection, libido loss, sexual weakness, impotence etcetera." i really shoulda guessed, but pray tell, how on earth does getting increased sexual libido enable you take back control of y...

quite a few things in life are so constant that they attain almost statutory recognition. some of these are mere cultural habits that are so widespread that once you meet someone who claims to be from a certain tribe, you immediately assume that they must indulge in such a habit. for example, ibo people and going home at christmas time, hausa people and marrying underaged girls, calabar girls and their capabilities in...well, by now i'm sure you get the point sometimes, i wonder what the basis is for the continued practice of a habit especially those of my ibo brethren who insist on going to the "east" every single darn christmas. through horrid roads, incessant armed robbery attacks and the usual "evil relatives" just waiting to poison them through fetish means at all such visits to their hometowns, ibo people seem insistent on conitnuing this tradition against all odds. however, for the first time since i gained cognisance of my surroundings, this year 2009 ma...

i'm often the first person to admonish people to shut up if they've got nothing significant to say. hence the silence on this blog for some time. i just dont feel like anything significatn has happened to be worth my time and your attention. but i observed yesterday while driving home, that life is short and there is never a better time to set out one's thoughts than now. also, as there is never a time when my thoughts stop running, i guess there's always something to talk about. having said that, i would like to re-iterate my above advise to some funny guy who was introduced on a radio show last night as a "chieftain" of the People's Democratic Party. as you already know, the word "chieftain" now refers to any irrelevant maybe-not-even-card-carrying member of any political party. gone are the days when the word "chieftain" refered to the solomon lars, the sarakis and the adedibus. so anyways, i guess for lack of anything better to disc...

this morning started out normal for me. as usual, thursday mornings are the worst of the week when the excitement of a monday morning (yes i said excitement) has worn off, and the drive of wednesday has finally gone. its the morning when i struggle to wake up and always get out of the house late. the soul is willing but the body is weak. luckily, in lagos nigeria, thats the environmental sanitation day every week for traders and all markets in the state remain closed until ten o'clock. you won't believe how much relief that creates for other road users like me so i still manage to get to work in decent time to do stuff like facebook and blog. okay, so why am i telling you all this? i can't quite remember but anyways... so i was going past my fave spot - iyana ipaja under bridge - yes, thats where everything happens, when i suddenly felt my spirits lift. in fact my spirits lifted me so high from my half-asleep state that i began to hum to myself. why this sudden joy you migh...

i bet that i've said more than my fair share of crap on nigerian music and if some artistes knew me personally, i'd be holed up in my house all year to avoid being scrubbed on the ground...but you know, they just won't let me be. first off, i can't stand it when musicians (as part of their lyrics) insult people. calling everyone who criticizes them even a little, jealous etcetera - yes, timaya, i am talking to you. since my scathing comments on their lack of originality hasnt stopped them churning out rubbish, neither will their calling people like me jealous, stop me from calling them out on their crap. today, i'll need y'all to head to youtube and check out the following videos and then please let me know if i'm talking rubbish. maybe i should do this in terms of absolutely hate to manageably love. number 1 - absolutely hate - goes to P.Square for their "Danger" single. these two guys hit us in the face like a bucket of ice water in scorching hea...

its something that we all forget sometimes...and thats to pause for a minute and thank people who make everyday a good day. yesterday i got feedback from a few people who read my blog (i didn't think anyone reads this stuff) and it made me feel really good to know that, although my views can be mine alone, someone somewhere has the time to read it and disagree with me on my style, points, facts etcetera. so i'm not writing anything today (although coming to work by public transport just leaves me bursting to write about all the things that are just right with lagos state, and just wrong with people)... one reader said he hates my blog because its a "doomsday column"...well, firstly, i didn't know i was writing a column (sounds fancy, maybe i should), and i don't recall ever writing a single bad thing about fashola (lol), but you know its all good right? another person set the records straight about my opinion on the impending deregulation of the petroleum sect...

yesterday was a lot better than the day before, thank you all for asking (like you care, right?) but it had its many twists and sometimes i wonder if i'm just dramatic or if dramatic things just find a way to happen to me. so it happened that my car developed some tyre issues on the way to work and i sent it off to get repaired. which meant that at the close of business yesterday, i had no choice than to use the public transport system, which i haven't used for 11 months now. at first, i kept thinking how i'd manage without my car on the way home but as soon as i got to obalende (a popular busstop in lagos, nigeria) i felt like a kid in a candy store. suddenly, life was exciting again. it is funny how much i miss the under-bridge busstop scene. its like a different world altogether. the lady who used to sell me recharge card was still there (albeit now much fatter and lighter skinned) with her drag queen make-up still intact, the guy who calls out for passengers on the ...

i often hear it being said that behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining. its something i have believed in for a long time and i usually console myself with this saying when i'm having a really bad day at work (cue yesterday). yesterday was such a horrendous experience at the office that i just kept hoping that somehow, some cheery news would just interrupt my day and make it all right. as usual, i was listening to the radio on my way home and happened upon the interview with yinka odumakin who happens to be some official of the action congress (a political party in nigeria). the topic for discussion on the programme (and dare i say, on every nigerian's lips today) was "what the heck does the government think it is doing by de-regulating the downstream petroleum sector?"...well, not exactly in those words but you get the drift. the gist of the issue is, we now get to buy petrol for 95 naira and kerosene for 102 naira. like i expected, every other line of his a...

for the first time in a long time, i didn't wake up early to catch the president's independence day address to the country. i mean, anyone following the happenings in the past few months can by himself write the independence day address. considering that no visible progress has been made in any sector of the economy, i expected them to scrap the speech and show a nigerian movie instead. but i guess president yaradua still had something to say: about the challenges of the past few months in the global economy and the success of the amnesty programme. right. thanks, goodbye. yesterday, my brother who went to abuja for a week, sent us all an SMS that he was already at the airport waiting to catch a 5 pm virgin nigeria (or is it nigerian eagle now?) flight to lagos. clearly by 6 pm the flight should be in lagos and by 7 pm max, considering it was a sunday evening, we expected him to be home. so of course by 6.30 pm we began to call him. MTN network informed us that his number ...

i just realized a minute back that i mostly start my blog post by saying "i won't say much today" or something to that effect, and then end up writing an epistle. now, i'm not sure if i do this to get you to read to the end of the post - on the assumption that its a short read, or its that i sub-consciously believe that a 12 paragraph write-up is actually short. either way, forgive me and i'm just gonna keep this really short. that is, if nigeria and its daily offereings of the unbelievable and sometimes downright ridiculous will let me. on my way to work today, i noticed a molue (huge lorry-like bus often without brakes and used to convey tons of people in lagos nigeria) with the following inscription on the back "model 2010". i guess that was supposed to intimate prospective passengers that they would be cruising around town in the latest breed of this contraption. truth is, i haven't seen a more rickety bus in a looooong time. soon after, another ...

i'm not going to say much today, not because the general news around the country has suddenly become positive (well, it has for our foreign affairs minister, chief maduekwe) but because only very few things are worth my thought process... i have been accused severally of taking sides with governor raji fashola in a battle that is uneven...uneven because there is no way i can tell if, say, obanikoro would have done a better job were he elected governor instead. basically, i am told there is nothing to compare fashola with. and i agree... i agree that in nigeria today, there is indeed nothing to compare fashola with. in the last one week, all i have heard about other government officials are 1. The Federal Executive council could not hold its weekly meeting because ministers had not submitted their memos for deliberation, as many of them hadnt returned from the sallah break (really? sirs, the rest of the country which you govern were back at their desks almost immediately after) and ...

now, i'm sure its general knowledge that i've been on vacation for the most part of the last month and a half. it was a great time, knowing that i could wake up at noon and then slowly decide what the rest of my day should be like. having to work from 5 am to 9 pm everyday, makes it impossible for one to want any activity during his break but i did try to hit the gym during that time and kick start my belated "get fit" program. you know, for someone who has every edition of "men's health magazine" from 2008, its ludicrous to be in the shape i'm in. i'm not in entirely bad shape, ladies, just picture an avocado pear...thats a shape too isn't it? so anyways, i'm back here...just in time to gasp unbelievably at the fact that ASUU is still on strike? we might as well ask everyone to become artisans and scrap the entire school system. its good that the someone finally has the balls to stand up to the bullying teachers who do nothing for the ed...

today on the way to work, i happened to be joined by a close friend who kinda came visiting yesterday cos she had work to do on the island. she happened to come to my house in the afternoon while i was at work and caught my neighbour violently beating her 8 year old son, in a way that only nigerian mothers understand. the natural reaction was to salvage whatever was left of the boy, from his mother's hands and at least try and figure out what unbailable offence the boy had committed. alas, it was a grave offence under the nigerian mother's code. no, it wasn't stealing meat from the cooking pot (you know you all did it), it wasn't being caught in a compromising position with the neighbour's daughter (don't even try to act like you can't relate, guys)...it was the worst of all. Bed wetting. wow, right? so first thing this morning, thanks to the internet, i checked up on this matter which, to be honest, i was plagued with during childhood. enuresis, as it is kn...

i'm the sort of person that doesn't have any favourite artiste. i just dig the songs and not the performers. so its often that i'd be hit by a single, and then proceed to buy the album and then realize it was a complete waste of my money. and i'm so hooked to good sound, that i actually find myself checking out the billboard hot 100 almost on a weekly basis so that by the time all the radio stations are doing their lame top ten countdown shows, i can already tell who is number one. but until recently, nigerian music just wasn't cutting it for me. everyone was raving about different artistes at different times, but i just wasn't feeling it. even as a young boy i knew that the standard of music just didn't do it for me. truth is, the reason that michael jackson's music still finds a place on radio stations today, is that the quality was timeless. same with fela (ignoring the lewdness of his lyrics, which got me in the gut each time). i kinda predict that t...

i've got tons of work lined up for me this morning so i'm gonna do this real quick. yesterday, i heard severally that the olubadan of ibadan (their king) was quipping about how he was being owed over 1 billion naira as... wait for it, salary for one and a half years! i had to hurriedly do the math. 1 billion divided by 18 months = 55 million naira a month. thats over ten years of my annual salary some dude is earning in one month. don't get me wrong. i love kings. i love royalty. i'm all for giving one guy way too much respect than he's worth just because we gave his grandfather the same respect (which the man probably deserved in his time for waging a tribal war etcetera) and although i just checked my calendar and we're in 2009, way beyond the era of tribal wars and conquests wherein kings were relevant, i begrudge him not. what i do not understand is: why on earth are we paying anyone, king or not, 55 million naira a month just to sit on some old chair and ha...

let me start by saying that today isn't my best writing day, so forgive me if i appear incoherent at times. to be honest, i'm a lil overwhelmed by not just the standard of living i have, but by how much worse things are indeed becoming. pretend as i want, that most of the issues on the news don't affect me by a mile, the truth is that as i have found out, life is a cycle. and someday, somehow, it will all link up to me. black is often associated with negative things. sorrow, grief, mourning...illiteracy, ignorance, violence. many arguments have been made linking these acts and tendencies to the era of the slave trade and how this was the psychological mindset that ensured that africans got through the brutality of the time. whilst i have no empirical basis to argue for or against this proposition, i am completely unwilling to even argue. in nigeria, every event worth mentioning erodes our faith in our abilities to govern ourselves. it appears, as you look around the contine...

i had promised a long time ago that i wasn't going to write piolitically themed posts anymore especially since i realized that my readership increased when i focused on life themes like love, trust and family. however, nigeria just won't let me be without something politically ridiculous that gets me started. 2 things: where on earth did we get our current president? and how on earth can we get a new one before this country completely collapses? In my near 30 years of living, i have never witnessed the levels of insecurity that are facing today as a nation. we have somehow accepted that one in five persons will be kidnapped and most parents today are saving money frantically, not for school fees, not for rent, but for the almost inevitable ransome money that they will be forced to pay at some point in the lives. unbelievable. we just finished two intense fuel scarcities and kerosene prices are through the roof. all universities in the entire country are on strike and have been ...

as many of you probably already know, my younger sister got married a few days ago. as a matter of fact, just last weekend. its amazing how these things happen. one minute you can bully your siblings, next minute they're all grown and married. at the wedding, you could just feel the joy, and see the excitement on the faces of the couple...and then some. i am her elder brother by 5 years. "so what" you might ask. i'm not yet married..."ooh, that" you now say. to be honest, and i know this may sound sexist, i always thought the expectation to marry in order of seniority was a girl thing but apparently, from the looks and overly-polite smiles that greeted me everywhere i went during the wedding, its not quite so. you should have seen the looks i kept getting. old aunties would come up to me, ask if i remembered them (i almost replied: "you're the old 'most-likely-to-be-senile' one, so i should be asking that question"), and then o so polit...

i've been accused severally of writing content that has nothing to do with the topic...i apologize, but thats my way of being creative (i know, crap right?). so before i say anything, i need to render my sincere apologies to anyone out there who's been checking my blog to see if i've got any new thoughts on the state of nigeria, written down. unfortunately, i haven't been here for over a month. i lost my phone under very mysterious circumstances and i used to access my gmail account on there by default. so it meant that as soon as you clicked the gmail icon, it would immediately open my email box (not good enough)...so i frantically changed my password from the one that i had used for over 3 years, and in the panic, totally forgot what i'd changed it to. so basically, i locked myself out of everything that required my google account (including this blog page). so thats it basically. i watched television some time ago (hurray) and stumbled on the hip hop world awards...

you know how growing up there was something that always terrified you? (not the dark, you sissy)...i'm talking about some future thing that you just used to dread ever happening to you by chance. you know, like all those older cousins who had to write JAMB five times for no apparent reason and would leave you wondering how many times you would have to end up writing it too. i just realized, that at every stage in life, the human mind finds something new to be scared of...nay, more like worried for. i just sat on my couch over the weekend assessing my life. it occured to me that somehow, i had reached my short term goal of earning a proper salary, and i had acquired the sound system, car, phone and laptop of my dreams. i mean, i've got everything i always thought would make me "arrive"...so why was i still worried? and what was it that felt outstanding? then it hit me...i'll never be rid of something new to worry about. even if i had every single thing on earth...i...

i haven't wrriten in a while...clearly, the country has fallen into even lower depths of disrepair that its difficult to pick any single subject to write on. plus, the rains have made it even worse...and all the wedding bells tolling around me can't have helped my mood either. so yesterday i was on my way home and running through the radio stations (really boring programming these days, i tell you), when i kept bumping into the "children's day" ads of varying degrees. each time i hear something about children's day, i'd stop to listen, in the vain hope that someone somewhere actually realizes that the day was set aside for adults to slow down and pay attention to kids around them...not a day to make parents feel guilty enough to be extorted all in the name of "making the children happy". it was grinding to listen to the pathetic presenters announing one new party or the other where kids stand to win great prizes if their parents buy them somethin...

no prologue. "about 500 mentally challenged patients of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos took to the streets as their nurses and health care workers went on strike" yesterday. there are some things about nigeria thats leaves me agape. how much money can the nurses be fighting for that would be worth the anguish that family members of these mentally challenged people will face when they cannot locate them? can the allowances, increases and surpluses ever assuage a child whose mad mother is probably on her way to ibadan now and will never be found again? do we think of the consequences of our actions BEFORE we carry them out? President of the resident doctors association says: "there is no need for the relatives of the patients to panic as the situation would return to normal soon.". Really? You just said that? wow. No epilogue

i really do not have much to say today. and untrue to type, there's nothing to moan about...its not because nigeria has suddenly got it all right, but because i stumbled on the interview by a man i admire - pascal dozie. because of the pedestal i place him, i am proud to have any inkling of similarity with his mindset, positions, beliefs or philosophy but i won't fake it. so you can imagine my joy when he was quoted as saying (in reference to his wife of 40 years): "we became such good friends, we took marriage as a natural. what was important to me was finding somebody i could have physical and spiritual attraction to, somebody i could stay with without the need for a third party...love comes after marriage. if love came before marriage, there will be no divorce. love is not an emotional thing, it is a will thing". - Guardian May 14 2009, pg 13. it may have occured to you that i can write an entire thesis in human psychology from these simple words. they are powerful...

considering how stoical men of the nigerian army are potrayed, i was really surprised to read on page 65 of the Guardian of Wednaesday May 13 2009, a response from a certain Lt.Col Adegbenro to the many public queries (ably led by defence counsel to the accused soldiers, femi falana) on the incredulous life sentence handed down on the 27 soldiers who had the audacity to ask that the right thing be done. in a country rife with unbridled corruption, none of the many excuses given by this questionably knowledgeable gentleman sufficed to quell the many question marks that have arisen as a result of the sentence handed down by the military tribunal. short of boring you with the excerpts of his monologue, it went from insulting the intelligence of any member of the public that was sane enough to query the basis of the sentence (by calling them "sympathisers...poorly educated on military norms") - to calling the respected femi falana a man that has "carried am image of himself ...